Major network operators in the country lost N120bn potential revenue from voice calls in 2017, the Nigerian Communications Commission data showed on Friday.
This is as a result of the reduction in the subscriber base of MTN, Globacom, Airtel and 9mobile between January and December 2017, according to analyses of the latest statistics from the NCC.
The NCC’s statistics on the subscribers under the GSM category showed that the active mobile voice subscriptions on the four major networks fell from 154.660 million in January to 144.631 million in December, representing a loss of over 10.028 million active network users.
This impacted negatively on revenue meant to accrue to telcos from voice calls.
According to findings, the industry’s Average Revenue Per User on voice calls is $2.75, which is equivalent to N998.25 per month using N363 to one dollar exchange rate.
This means that in 12 months, a subscriber was expected to have spent an average of N11,979 on voice calls. An estimation of the amount of money they would have earned on voice calls from 10,028,768 subscribers that were lost is N120.134bn.
A London-based research and analytics firm, Ovum, had predicted that the telecommunications industry would lose about $386bn between 2012 and 2018 from customers using the OTT voice applications.